Eye on ‘Gay Muslims’

Islamic etiquettes of debate dictate that you should think the best of the intentions of those with whom you disagree, but sometimes they have no redeeming qualities. Such is the case with Faisal Alam, founder of Al-Fahisha and therefore one on whom the hadith of our Prophet (peace be on him) applies: “Whoever establishes an evil pattern of conduct (sunnah sayyi’ah), then upon him is the sin of it and everyone who acts upon it until the Day of Judgement.” If the People of Lut (peace be on him) were the first humans to indulge in the base sin of sodomy, then Alam and his friends like Sid Thompson aka “Daayiee Abdullah” have (mis)led the way for modern Muslims who have sought to justify their sinful choices in Islam.

Let’s be clear that what they hate is not some Muslims’ “homophobia”, but Islam itself. In his latest interview entitled “Closet Jihad“, we find these telling statements:

With growing evidence that he’s no longer alone with his struggle, Alam says he has not fully reconciled his sexuality with his own faith. He doesn’t attend mosque, and considers himself more spiritual than religious.

“At the end of the day, we’re fighting 1,400 years of theology that in many ways is against us,” he says.

Listen well, O you who are “proud to be gay Muslims” (who comment here from time to time!), is this the sort of person you want to follow? He and his bedfellows are hurtling to their destruction, yet it is never too late for them to save themselves by turning back to God’s guidance.

Your Jihad is to resist your urges to do things that Allah Most High has prohibited.
Your Jihad is to stay patient through these temptations.
Your Jihad is to overcome these unwanted desires.Your Jihad is to please Allah every day and draw closer to Him.
Your Jihad is to turn to Him, trust in Him and ask His help in life.

Meanwhile people like Alam who have no faith left in their own hearts are trying to build a “coalition” to challenge the Muslim community and its leaders. A bit of humility and sincerity to Allah would be a much better solution to their problems. If they want a sympathetic ear to help them in obedience to the Creator, then that is their absolute right. If they want to shake things up in the name of “gay rights”, then they will meet with justified failure.

Inayat Bunglawala is a British activist who is not afraid to express opinions that upset enemies of Islam and Muslims, or sometimes fellow Muslims. I appreciate his efforts, even if I disagree with some things he says. Recently he has supposedly opened debates on the place of “homosexuals” (by which we mean here: people who identify as such, or same-sex attracted people who don’t) among the Muslim community – debates we have been advocating on this blog for a long time, alhamdu lillah.

But what sort of support? I think anything that could be done to jeopardise a human being’s standing before his Lord does not deserve to be dubbed “support”. As religious people, we should only advocate support that entails guiding people to goodness in this life and satisfaction in the Hereafter.

Bunglawala mixes a few issues that really ought to be addressed individually. First, he praises the Muslim Council of Britain’s support for the Equality Act a few years ago:

A little note for the anti-Muslim bigots of Harry’s Place and the Spittoon, who have recently taken to linking to some of our blog posts. Welcome, and feel free to read: it could be a cure for your ignorance.

But every time you repeat your own invented terms, like “curing gays” and “ex-gays”, and put them in quote marks to imply that you read them here, you just prove how dishonest you are. You can’t even read a few articles and get the correct gist. Sure, you’re going to disagree, but at least disagree with what we actually say, not your pathetic strawmen. One of you couldn’t even spell my name right in his article!

Or go ahead, roll around in your own filth if you want. It’s your right.

Remember Pav Akhtar, the one whom Muslim students were asked to support in NUS elections? That same sore loser who went crying to the Muslim Weekly with the following lies after most Muslims didn’t back him?

Pav said that his sexuality was something he was personally “contending with” and insisted he has never recognised homosexuality as permissible in Islam.

I posted written and pictorial evidence back then that he was in fact fully “out and proud” (his words), and now he is the Chair of Imaan, a London-based pro-homosexuality group who have obviously featured on our blog before. According to today’s Guardian:

Pav Akhtar is not usually a fan of soaps. But the 30-year-old local councillor and Unison worker has been paying special attention since EastEnders introduced its first gay Muslim character. Akhtar, the chair of Imaan, an organisation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Muslims, advised the BBC on the storyline in the hope that the character of Syed Masood would help tackle the double discrimination of homophobia and Islamophobia that many gay Muslims face.

The Guardian article – What’s it like being a gay Muslim? – features various voices, none of whom are Muslims who choose to resist their same-sex attractions, as Syed is presently doing on the show. That course of action is what mainstream Muslims would advise any person in that situation. Yet the implication of the article, probably constructed with the advice of Pav and Imaan, is that those people are not “true to themselves”, which I suspect will also be the eventual message of Eastenders.

It also states that “The Muslim theologian Amanullah De Sondy said recently that the vast majority of Muslims were ‘deeply homophobic'” – massaging his ego by making him a “theologian” when he’s just a recent PhD in Sufi poetry with vanishingly meagre credentials in Islam. Oh, and mightn’t he have just a bit of bias in this question? Also, given that he’s not a sociologist or anthropologist, how did he gather this “vast majority” data? Ah, doesn’t matter does it, it’s only journalism.

Like his friends, he holds the Muslim community in contempt. (“Homophobes!”) And as such, he stands no chance of making a difference. With this latest “coming out”, I’m sure he realises he will never be invited to speak to Muslims again, except in the depths of his university department, for whoever thinks that is a proper way to learn Islam. Yes, study at the feet of non-Muslims too! Indeed, many of them are much fairer in their treatment of Islam than twisted people like De Sondy.

As a commenter at Harry’s Place put it: “A courageous young man. Very much like Irshad Manji.” Yes, very much. Although at least Manji is explicit that her purpose of rewriting Islam for herself was to justify being with her lesbian lover.

Agree with this statement or disagree, it is the opinion of a recent PhD graduate at Glasgow University who desperately wishes he could be as celebrated a Muslim progressive as his idols like Reza Aslan. Trouble is, he’s just not as talented.

Amanullah De Sondy certainly hasn’t remained quiet about issues that make him itch, yet his views on homosexuality have been strangely muted. This despite the fact that people who have known him for years say that they expected him to come out with something eventually. Well here it is (or almost).

It is very important to him to insist he’s an “academic“, because that apparently gives him the right to say whatever he wants about Islam and we Westerners are supposed to take it at face value, despite the fact that academia itself is a system of presenting and challenging views based on research. But that doesn’t make everything novel or controversial worthwhile in itself. Some academics are still trotting out the discredited theories of yesteryear, and Islamic Studies is one of the most affected by this problem due to the persistence of classical Orientalist agendas linked to colonialism and modern-day warmongering.

And without meaning offence to everyone at the University of Glasgow, I wouldn’t study Islam there any more than I would boast about a degree in English Literature from Kabul University.

De Sondy seems to fantasise about cloning himself and taking over Scotland, judging by one rather huffy letter penned last year:

I smell worry in the words and actions of the political Islamists, Mosques and our so-called Islamic leaders who want to cage and control the sentiments of the true progressive Scottish Muslims, but this new wave will emerge in full force, and time will then be the judge of who are the best partners in creating a flourishing Scotland.

However, much like his blog which he optimistically titled “Progressive Scottish Muslims”, adding an ‘s’ on the end doesn’t mean that you’re more than one person.

No, not when it comes to Daayiee “little head” Abdullah (aka Sid Thompson). He’s taken his filth into a new domain thanks to his devotee Afdhere Jama, with the following video published on YouTube. He speaks about his “first love”, i.e. homosexual relationship.

Look at this man presenting himself as an “imam”, even selecting some Islamic-style garb to give a certain impression, while uttering words like the following:

On that Sunday, Ottis had come by to visit me while my parents and siblings were away at one of my aunts’ house visiting, and of course, being our impetuous selves, we had great sex that day. And on that Tuesday his cousin William contacted me and told me that Ottis had committed suicide.

Well Daayiee, if you’re going to keep insisting that you’re an “imam”, then I will have to tell people that the only thing in which you’re an imam (leader) is twisting and perverting the religion of Allah, and misleading people unfortunate enough to listen to your deception.

I do not say these things lightly. We at this blog don’t go to extremes and make takfir of people, or say that everyone with homosexual feelings is a sinner (as sin depends on actions). We use kind words in advice to those with hearts seeking Allah, and we reason with those who are reasonable, no matter how starkly we differ.

But this corrupter must be exposed for the fraud that he is, lest Muslims start to wonder if there really is such a thing as a “gay imam”. He’s proven through the “Muslim Gay Men” Yahoogroup he moderates (like a fascist) that he’s not the least bit interested in reasoned discussion with Muslims who oppose homosexuality (i.e. those who give even minimal respect to the Qur’an and Sunnah).

While we prepare some more details, please refer to the following articles to get some background on Mr Daayiee:

It’s Ramadan again. Last year promoters of a film called “In the Name of Allah” invited people to a cocktail iftar at a San Fran club to raise funds. I only hope they didn’t use hadiths about the Prophet (peace be upon him) being more generous in Ramadan to further their filthy agenda.

Now the film has been released, under a different title: “A Jihad for Love”.
SubhanAllah, I don’t know which title is more crass!

I can’t remember now where I heard the rumours of a new Qur’an translation by a progressive Muslim woman… but this must be it, as announced by Faisal Alam of Al-Fatiha. If it serves their desires, it gets forwarded!

The first translation of the Qur’an by an American woman. What an event! The fawning article in the New York Times [reproduced below] includes a priceless insight into her lack of qualification:

“[Laleh] Bakhtiar, who is 68 and has a doctorate in educational psychology…does not speak Arabic, but she learned to read the holy texts in Arabic while studying and working as a translator in Iran in the 1970s and ’80s.

Her eureka moment came on roughly her 10th reading of the Arabic-English Lexicon by Edward William Lane, a 3,064-page volume from the 19th century, she said. Among the six pages of definitions for “daraba” was “to go away.” [Bakhtiar says:] “I said to myself, ‘Oh, God, that is what the prophet meant…”

There’s another answer on Islam Online’s Cyber Counselling service, following some we’ve highlighted here before. The answer is useful, but it’s sad that once again they have only suggested NARTH as a resource for this struggling Muslim to access: while an interesting site, it won’t provide the answers or support needed from our own religious framework.

The StraightWay Foundation runs a support group for this purpose, where brothers and sisters can share their feelings and experience in a safe environment, and benefit from advice from others in the same situation, plus advisors specialising in the religious and/or psychological aspects of resisting and overcoming same-sex attractions.

A Unique Perspective

Here we discuss the concept and emergence of "Gay Muslims", considering that homosexual activity is clearly forbidden in Islam. We kindly advise Muslims struggling with same-sex attraction, affirming that nobody is sinful for what they feel inside. As for those people who try to distort the religion, we refute them soundly with evidence.